I’ve had one of the most relaxing holidays ever. I spent 5 days in Miami, which was so, so. Its bit of a party town, my kids knew this, I didn’t, which I think pretty much sums up Miami. I stayed in one of the swankiest hotels ever and came to the conclusion you had to be under 26 years old and a millionaire to enjoy it properly.
I then moved on to Naples in Florida which I absolutely loved. Beautiful place, very quiet, good restaurants. I was lucky to meet an English couple with a house out there, so I got taken to a few cool places. One of which was Jimmy P’s, an absolutely fabulously well stocked butchers shop that comes with a chef, armed with a griddle pan, if it’s in the shop and you can cook it on the griddle, you can have it. Brilliant concept. Plastic tables and chairs in the middle and outside of the shop. Everyone was in there, construction workers, office workers, policeman, you can only have 3 sides, beans, chips or coleslaw, which probably explains why most of the diners were blokes. Burgers come in a third, half or a whole pound of meat!
I did nothing at all, all holiday apart from sit, lay, read and play Civilisation 5. I was in bed by 9 every night and feel so rested. That was the first ever holiday I have had on my own and it was fabulous.
I’ve got a couple of exciting TV projects coming up which means I am going to be very busy now all the way through until Christmas. Can’t give too much away but safe to say, everything revolves around food. Pretty much sums me up.
I hope you are enjoying Celebrity Masterchef right now, I missed the first bit because I was away. But I am catching up now. I’ve giggled at some of it, it’s so funny but we’ll soon be in the serious stages and the cooking as always, gets better and better. If you notice, me and John will start to take bigger and bigger mouthfuls! Some of the early stuff, I almost had to close my eyes before I tasted it.
On the restaurant front, Tuesday nights have now become steak nights at Wallace & Co in Putney and very popular they are too. At Gregg’s Table in Bermondsey, we’re looking at a menu change, maybe a simpler approach. Possibly a grill, we’re looking at it very closely.
The other big project this year has been my autobiography, I am waiting now on the second draft and I am just about to write captions for the photographs. It’s funny, everything lately seems to be retrospective, writing about your life, sometimes has you in fits of laughter, sometimes a little teary. But nowhere near as teary as my episode of “Who do you think you are”. I had no idea of the story that was going to unfold. So sad but I have had such a lovely response from people, I’m really pleased I did it.
